After a generation in University life, has now retired from teaching to concentrate on lecturing to a wider public, and to leading tours to his major areas of interest: the architecture and archaeology of Ireland, and the Mediterranean basin.

Medieval bestiaries are wondrously colourful worlds, blending fact with fiction, morality with mythology. They represent an understanding of the physical world, but also fulfilled the need for symbolic creatures to supplement biblical stories, offering a wide array of noble or crude behaviours with which to compare ourselves. What happened if you chased a bonnacon? What was a beaver's superpower? What did owls mean? And how did animals graduate from bestiaries into the realm of heraldry? In the course of an hour, we'll explore all these and more.

Dr Jonathan Foyle is a career communicator, best known for presenting TV series such as BBC2's Broadcast Award-winning 15-part 'Climbing Great Buildings', as well as contributing to Channel 4's 'Time Team' and Channel 5's 'Secrets of the Royal Palaces'. His former roles have encompassed Curator at Hampton Court and Chief Executive of World Monuments Fund Britain, writer for the FT Weekend, and he is now a lecturer at the University of Bath. Jonathan has authored seven volumes on great cathedrals and castles and has spoken across the world about discoveries in British arts. The offered Arts Society talks offer fresh and original analyses of personal fascinations in architecture and the arts and crafts, especially their all-important symbolism, through which we can better understand what their makers were trying to communicate- to anyone who holds the keys to deciphering. The aim of these talks is to share those keys, in friendship and with a sense of humour.

Lidos and libraries, concert halls and cottage estates: the inter-war era was a time of bold and urgent experiments in social engineering through architecture. 

Against a backdrop of the Great Depression, ‘moral uplift’ and ‘optimism’ became the buzzwords of the day. What if civic architecture could change the lives of the people? How could the puny ‘C3’ Brits be transformed into an A1 nation? What could we learn from our European neighbours (including, whisper it, the Germans)?

Tessa Boase is a freelance journalist, author, lecturer and campaigner with a particular interest in uncovering the stories of invisible women from the 19th and early 20th-centuries – revealing how they drove industry, propped up society and influenced politics. 

She’s the author of three books of social history: 

The Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House; 

Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds, and London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams. 

Since uncovering the feminist origins of the RSPB, Tessa has been campaigning for public recognition of its female founders with plaques, portraits and a statue. 

Lady Muraski (c 978 -1014) writing then tale of Genji at Ishiyama Temple

Details to follow.

William Morris led a revolution against the products of the machine age. The first of our ‘passionate potters’, William de Morgan, was a friend of Morris who rediscovered the secrets of Near Eastern lustre glazes.

In contrast, the eccentric and argumentative Martin Brothers created a range of elaborate salt glazed pots unparalleled in their imaginative breadth. Sir Edmund Elton, the ‘potter baronet’, made pots which combine startling glazes with exotic forms.

I studied archaeology at Reading University and have since worked as a professional archaeologist, in commercial archaeology, for English Heritage, for the BBC and as an independent. I was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1992 and have an honorary doctorate. I have long been involved in teaching and outreach projects, lecturing widely in continuing education, to schools (with a focus on special needs pupils) and societies.

My career in broadcasting involved researching and presenting Meet the Ancestors and Blood of the Vikings for BBC2, and Mapping the Town for Radio 4. I have written a number of English Heritage publications on Stonehenge, including the previous and current guide books to the monument and landscape. Museum work includes curating Stonehenge related exhibitions in the UK and abroad (Germany and Austria) and I have just curated the new permanent ceramics gallery for Salisbury Museum. With no intention of retiring I am still passionate about Stonehenge, pots and old cars.   

Details to follow.

2025 will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the international 1925 Arts Décoratifs exhibition in Paris (giving its name to the style later to become known as Art Deco). Visitors from around the world, museum curators, retailers, and the international press  descended on Paris to see and buy the designs which would influence a new generation of artists and designers. We will ask such questions as – Why Paris? Was there a distinctive style? Who were the key movers and shakers? Which were the key disseminators?

Using original black and white photographs set against actual colour artefacts, we will recreate the experience of walking through the stunning showcase pavilions.

Mary Alexander trained as an art historian and graduated with a BA Hons in History & History of Art (University College London) and later an MA (with Distinction) in History of Art (University College London). She moved to Manchester to take up the post of Assistant Curator at Platt Hall, the Gallery of English Costume, a renowned collection of historic dress. Subsequently she lectured in art history at the University of Leeds, the Open University and Manchester University Extra Mural Department. From 1995 - 2008, she was a Visiting Lecturer at Christie’s Education in London.

Mary has also combined academic work with the world of design consultancy. In 1985 she joined Pentagram Design in London, a leading international design consultancy, and coordinated client presentations, publications, conferences and international special events, including the 1986 British Design event in Aspen Colorado. In 1988 she transferred to Pentagram’s New York office with the task of organising an international design conference held at Stanford University involving business, design and education leaders.

As an experienced international speaker, Mary lectures regularly for The Arts Society throughout the UK, Europe and Australia and New Zealand. She also contributes articles to magazines, newspapers and professional journals. She was President of The Arts Society Glaven Valley, Norfolk from 2016- 2021.  

Harry Venning has been a professional cartoonist for thirty years, during which time he has provided cartoons for several high profile UK publications (The Guardian, Radio Times) as well as for countless more obscure titles (British Journal Of Wound Care). He was awarded UK Strip Cartoonist Of The Year for his Guardian strip Clare In The Community, which he adapted into a Radio 4 sitcom. In 'The Art Of The Cartoonist' Harry will be tracing the history of his profession with examples from early practitioners like Cruickshank and Hogarth, to more contemporary artists such as Giles and Schulz, bringing events right up to date with cartoons produced fresh on the page that day!

Harry Venning is a cartoonist, comedy writer and performer based in Brighton. Harry’s cartoons have appeared in publications as diverse as Mathematics Today, Radio Times, Music Teacher and The Stage. For twenty five years he provided The Guardian with the weekly strip cartoon Clare In The Community, about an unaware and empathy free social worker. In 2004 he developed Clare In The Community into a successful BBC Radio 4 sitcom starring Sally Philipps which ran for twelve series.

When not at a desk , Harry tours his cartoon workshop around schools, theatres, arts centres, cruise ships and festivals. He is an accredited lecturer with the UK Arts Society, an Honorary Fellow of the English/Creative Writing departments of Aberystwyth University, resident cartoonist with the Blue Hat team building organisation, UK Social Workers Union honorary ambassador, winner of a Sony Radio Award for Comedy and a former UK Strip Cartoonist Of The Year. He cannot draw hands or horses.